The World, For Good and Bad

Another Friday. The weather has become very pleasant, and stayed there a while. There are soccer tournaments rolling along nicely. Otherwise, though, things are pretty shitty out in the world. Another mass shooting in the USA; a political assassination in the UK, in the middle of a campaign to pull the UK out of the European union. The former has the usual debates going - the standard attempt to maybe make it harder for people to acquire tools specifically designed for killing people has made a bit more progress - a filibuster, that may force the Senate to vote on a gun bill. Profiles in Courage, part 1! it's not just that politicians (deeply in the pockets of the NRA - or, I should say, the part of the NRA that disperses the money, since I think the majority of the NRA itself still supports better gun laws) refuse to pass gun laws - it's that they don't want to vote on guns laws. Vote for gun regulation, and those checks disappear. Vote against them, and the fact that very large majorities of the voting public support them might have some consequences. So - my god: decent people (Democrats) are all excited because they managed to force a vote!

Hey, if it works...

Meanwhile, the right, when it's not reposting their defenses of gun ownership they post every time someone shoots a dozen people or more, is trying to make what hay they can about the fact that the possibly closeted religious zealot homophobe who did the killing in Orlando was Islamic this time, instead of the usual right wing Christian. Cheeto Jesus starts the wanking off, the usual stuff about banning Moslem immigrants (not useful against people born in Queens, as this killer was, but he'll get to rounding up the American born Moslems, etc., sooner or later), and claiming Obama is somehow responsible for the attacks. People called him on this, he whined, picked a fight with the Washington post, doubled down on the original nonsense - etc. Meanwhile, John McCain, woke up from another dream of world war III to second Trump's accusation - oh yeah - Obama is "directly responsible" for the attacks. However, the next day - Profiles in Courage Part 2! - McCain claims he "misspoke" - funny how that works. Get that smear on record, then try to pretend you never did it - bravely done.

Enough of that. I hope it's enough. I worry, though - the racists, homophobes, gun nuts, Jesus nuts (and Mohammed nuts) are a shrinking demographic - but as they get smaller, and less and less able to win anything by any other means, they are probably more likely to resort to violence. They can't win elections (without massive gerrymandering and corruption), so they start shooting. Not just here, but globally. Once more thing to worry about, I guess.

But now? Let's do some video - this week, being Pride month, and because the terrorism/hate crime in Orlando was directed explicitly against gays - some songs from out musicians:

Husker Du - New Day Rising, It's Not Funny Anymore:



The Priest, Breaking the Law:



Buzzcocks - I Believe:



And some Sigur Rus - which might also get us back t the good stuff - Iceland is in the European soccer championships - 10% of the country apparently travelled to France to attend the games - very nice. This is Hoppipolla: